You did well. Do you think that
I did not appreciate your imperious anxiety for me; that I did not
respect your resolution to do what you thought right, or feel how much
it cost you? If anything in the ways of love like yours could pain me,
it would be the sort of reserved tenderness that never treats me as
frankly and simply as" ... "There was no need to name either of those
so dearly loved, so lately--and, alas! so differently--lost. Trusting
the loyalty of my love so absolutely in all else, can you not trust it
to accept willingly the enforcement of your will ... as you have
enforced it on all others you have ruled, from the soldiers of your
own world to the rest of your household? Ah! the light breaks through
the mist. Before you gave Enva her charge you said to me in her
presence, 'Forgive me what you force upon me;' as if I, above all,
were not your own to deal with as you will. Dearest, do you so wrong
her who loves you, and is honoured by your love, as to fancy that any
exertion of your authority could make her feel humbled in your eyes or
her own?"
It was impossible to answer.
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